It was eggs galore on Cuban trip

Living or travelling as a vegetarian is easy on the west coast of North America -- which is where I'm used to doing it. But venture out of this well-defined comfort zone, and it gets a trifle less easy to manage.

The most challenging situation as a vegetarian is trying to explain -- without the benefit of fluency in the local language -- the very concept of vegetarianism in a society where it doesn't make cultural sense.

I first discovered this tricky problem on a trip to Cuba. Staying in a small town at a "casa particular" (a B&B licensed by the government but run in a private home), I tried in halting Spanish, and with much gesturing, smiling and head shaking, to explain to the woman who would be feeding me for the next three days that I did not eat meat.

After explaining that I don't eat pork -- or chicken, or fish, for that matter -- I was met with a puzzled look. In a culture where you take what the government is willing to give you, this is strange, illogical, and really kind of rude. But the Cuban people are incredibly welcoming, and will show you whatever hospitality they can.

So I got eggs -- at least two with each of the breakfasts and dinners I ate each day at the casa particular. This, of course, was in addition to the heaping bowls of rice and beans that are the staples of Cuban cuisine.

I spent the next three days eating more at each meal than I normally eat in a day (it's incredibly rude to leave leftovers in casa particular, since what you don't eat could have gone to someone else).

After dinner, I would retreat to my bedroom and lie on my back groaning and sweating in the evening heat, knowing in the morning I would have more eggs to face.

Throughout that trip, I would experience how warm and beautiful the unique people of Cuba are, and how willing they were to indulge the oddities of a foreigner who didn't even eat pork, for heaven's sake.

It was a wonderful, mind-opening experience. But I never did quite get over all those eggs.